Meet MrBeast, YouTube’s Biggest Star

YouTube gamer turned multi-millionaire.

Meet MrBeast, YouTube’s Biggest Star

Image: @mrbeast

Since its inception, YouTube has been a platform for many content creators to make a serious name for themselves and earn some considerable money in the process. Some of the highest earners to make a name for themselves include PewDiePie, Zella and David Dobrik. But the man who can currently comfortably lay claim to being the biggest name on YouTube, and the highest earner, is MrBeast.

So, who is MrBeast, how did he become famous and how much is he worth?

MrBeast Quick Facts

Name: Jimmy Donaldson
Age: 24
DoB: 7 May 1998
Nationality: American
Height: 6ft 3in / 1.9m
Instagram: @mrbeast – 18.7m followers
YouTube: MrBeast6000 – 96.5m subscribers / MrBeast Gaming – 27.4m subscribers
Net Worth: $55 million (estimated)

Who is MrBeast?

MrBeast is the online alias of Jimmy Donaldson, an American YouTube content creator, entrepreneur and philanthropist. He was on the 7th of May 1998 in Kansas but moved to Greenville, North Carolina at a young age. He graduated from Greenville Christian Academy in 2016.

MrBeast YouTube Career

Jimmy Donaldson – MrBeast – uploaded his first video to YouTube in February 2012 when he was just 13-years-old. The majority of his early content was either what is known as a ‘Let’s Plays’ video – a video that shows him playing various video games – videos of himself estimating the personal wealth of other YouTube personalities or videos providing tips and advice to anyone else wishing to become successful via YouTube.

MrBeast didn’t attract many subscribers in his first couple of years of uploading content, but that changed in 2015 – 2016, by which time his content had started attracting audiences and his subscriber base quickly rose to around 30,000.

Understanding that YouTube viewers will watch pretty much anything, MrBeast uploaded a video of himself simply counting to 100,000 in January 2017. It took him 40-hours to complete, but he edited it so that it only took 24-hours to watch. He followed this up with a second video showing himself counting to 200,000.

MrBeast continued to upload videos of himself performing obscure stunts, such as watching paint dry, which drew more and more attention to his account.

Image: @mrbeast

By this point, MrBeast was already earning considerable money through YouTube and so held various competitions for people to win some cash. One notable event saw one contestant win $1 million.

MrBeast’ most-viewed YouTube video to date is one where he recreated Squid Game – the immensely popular Netflix survival drama – which saw 456 people compete for a $456,000 prize. The video currently has over 248 million views.

MrBeast Gaming

To help segregate his videos, MrBeast created the MrBeast Gaming YouTube channel in May 2020 and which already boasts over 23 million subscribers. The MrBeast Gaming channel is where you will find videos of players competing in gaming events for cash prizes.

MrBeast Burger

Image: @mrbeastburger

MrBeast created the MrBeast Burger fast-food delivery chain in December 2020. MrBeast Burger is an entirely online offering; what is known as a virtual dining concept, which means burgers are only available via delivery. Customers can order burgers via the official MrBeast Burger app for iOS and Android, or via door-to-door food delivery services such as UberEats, Doordash and GrubHub.

There are currently over 1,000 MrBeast Burger locations that all work on a ghost-kitchen model, the majority of which are found in the United States of America, but there are 5 locations in London, England. MrBeast finds restaurants that are struggling – usually because of the Covid-19 pandemic – and pumps money into them, so that they can resume their usual business, but also cater to the MrBeast Burger menu.

MrBeast Chocolate

Image: @mrbeast

In January 2022, MrBeast founded his own food company, called Feastables, which currently has its own range of chocolate bars, appropriately called MrBeast Bars. They are currently only available in the USA, and in a limited range of flavours: Original, Almond, Quinoa Crunch, Milk Chocolate and Chocolate Sea Salt.

MrBeast has partnered with other brands to offer yet more chances to win prizes via the Feastables brand.

MrBeast Net Worth

Forbes reported that MrBeast earned $54 million in 2021, putting him on par with the likes of Lewis Hamilton. Not all of his money is earned through YouTube – payments come from both YouTube and advertising revenue – as he also has various sponsorship deals.

MrBeast’s net worth is an estimated $55 million, although various online publications state it is much lower, at around $25 million. Whilst he may earn a considerable amount of money, MrBeast invests heavily into his video content, with the majority of his videos costing around $300,000 to produce.

He also gives large sums of money, either to winners of competitions or in the form of donations to various charities. He claims he runs his channel at a loss.

MrBeast Merch

Perhaps unsurprisingly, MrBeast also has his own range of merchandise available to buy via his own website. Merchandise includes t-shirts, hoodies, phone cases, backpacks and homewares.

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